Body parts, personal belongings and other debris from EgyptAir Flight 804 were found floating in the Mediterranean on Friday — confirming that the doomed jetliner had plummeted into the sea with 66 people on board, officials said.
“A few hours earlier we were informed (by Egyptian authorities) that a body part, two seats and one or more items of luggage where found in the search area,” Greek Defense Minister Panos Kammenos told a news conference.
EgyptAir officials said later that, “Egyptian Military and Marine Forces have discovered more debris, passengers’ belongings, body parts, luggage, and aircraft seats.”
The items were found about 180 miles north of the coastal city of Alexandria, Egyptian naval officials said.
Kammenos said the discovery was made slightly to the south of where the aircraft had vanished from radar early Thursday.
The European Space Agency also said it had spotted a “potential oil slick” that appeared to be more than a mile long in the area where the plane disappeared from radar.
Egyptian President Adbel Fattah el-Sisi offered condolences for those on board the Paris-to-Cairo flight.
“God give great mercy and host them in his heaven,” his message said.
Recovery teams also are searching for the Airbus A320’s all-important black box recorders. Greece’s lead air accident investigator, Athanasios Binis, told the Guardian newspaper that it is vital to recover them.
“If the cockpit flight recorder and flight data recorder are found, along with wreckage, then a real investigation can begin,” Binis said.
A French Navy patrol boat equipped with sonar was heading to the area on Friday evening to take part in the search for the recorders. The US has also sent in navy aircraft to scour for debris.
No group has claimed responsibility for the disaster, though officials have said it was most likely a result of terrorism — possibly a bomb.
Officials from several American agencies told Reuters that a US review of satellite imagery had not produced any signs of an explosion. They said the US had not ruled out any possible causes for the crash.
Egyptian Civil Aviation Minister Sharif Fathy has said that terrorism was more likely to blame for the tragedy than a technical failure.
Those cited as likely to have caused it are Islamic extremists who have been fighting against Egypt’s government since Sisi toppled an elected Islamist leader in 2013.
The tragedy raised fears of a repeat of the bombing of a Russian airliner by ISIS over Egypt in October that killed all 224 people on board.
Yet French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault said Friday on France-2 TV that that there is “absolutely no indication” of what caused the crash.
Alain Vidalies, the junior minister for transport, said on France-Info radio that “no theory is favored” at this stage and urged “the greatest caution.”
Amid fears the plane was downed by terrorists, Vidalies defended security at Paris’s Charles de Gaulle Airport, saying staff badges are revoked if there is the slightest security doubt.
Meanwhile, Mike Vivian, former head of operations at the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority, told the BBC that he thought the plane’s abrupt turns before disappearing were more likely to have been caused by human interference than by a bomb.
“It looks highly unlikely that this was consistent with some sort of explosive device,” he said. “One’s inclined to go towards the theory that there had been some interference in the aircraft and on the flight deck, with the control of the aircraft.”
A team of Egyptian investigators led by Ayman el-Mokadam — along with French and British investigators and an expert from Airbus — will inspect the debris, Egyptian officials told the AP.
The plane vanished as it was leaving airspace controlled by Greece, whose defense minister, Panos Kammenos, said it swerved radically and plunged from 37,000 feet to 15,000 before vanishing from radar at 2:45 a.m. local time Thursday.
The Egyptian military said no distress call was received from the pilot.
The aircraft was carrying 56 passengers, including one child and two infants, and 10 crew, including three air marshals, EgyptAir said. Fifteen French citizens were on board.
Mourners gathered at a mosque near Cairo International Airport to pray for their loved ones on Friday.
A cousin of the flight’s co-pilot, Mohamed Mamdouh Ahmed Assem, described him as being “the best in his class.”
“He was very skilful,” Ahmed Asem told the Daily Mail.
“Ever since he was a little boy he had wanted to fly a plane. And finally he was realizing his dream. He was just a young man of 27 but he was living the life he had always wanted.”
With Post wires